Le Tour de France 2017

[FelicityLemon]

The stages

1 Individual time trial Saturday, July 1st
Düsseldorf / Düsseldorf 14 km
2 Flat Sunday, July 2nd Düsseldorf / Liège 203.5 km
3 Hilly Monday, July 3rd Verviers / Longwy 212.5 km
4 Flat Tuesday, July 4th Mondorf-les-Bains / Vittel 207.5 km
5 Hilly Wednesday, July 5th Vittel / La planche des belles filles 160.5 km
6 Flat Thursday, July 6th Vesoul / Troyes 216 km
7 Flat Friday, July 7th Troyes / Nuits-Saint-Georges 213.5 km
8 Hilly Saturday, July 8th Dole / Station des rousses 187.5 km
9 Mountain Sunday, July 9th Nantua / Chambéry 181.5 km

• Rest day Monday, July 10th Dordogne 10 Flat Tuesday, July 11th Périgueux / Bergerac 178 km 11 Flat Wednesday, July 12th Eymet / Pau 203.5 km 12 Mountain Thursday, July 13th Pau / Peyragudes 214.5 km 13 Mountain Friday, July 14th Saint-Girons / Foix 101 km 14 Hilly Saturday, July 15th Blagnac / Rodez 181.5 km 15 Hilly Sunday, July 16th Laissac-Sévérac l'Église / Le Puy-en-Velay 189.5 km
• Rest day Monday, July 17th Le Puy-en-Velay 16 Flat Tuesday, July 18th Le Puy-en-Velay / Romans-sur-Isère 165 km 17 Mountain Wednesday, July 19th La Mure / Serre-Chevalier 183 km 18 Mountain Thursday, July 20th Briançon / Izoard 179.5 km 19 Flat Friday, July 21st Embrun / Salon-de-Provence 222.5 km 20 Individual time trial Saturday, July 22nd Marseille / Marseille 22.5 km 21 Flat Sunday, July 23rd Montgeron / Paris Champs-Élysées 103 km

The league is here www.velogames.com/tour-de-france/2017/leaguescores.php?league=682378015

Grab your wine and French (and German) snacks and enjoy.

Also not forgetting the real heroes of Le Tour
twitter.com/lesvachesdutour

www.lesvachesdutour.com/

Not sure about the Cav Crash....

ITV 4 coverage the same (as good as) the previous Ch4 coverage

Sagan was initially dropped and had a points penalty but he's out now isn't he?

My twitter feed is pretty adamant that Sagan was at fault - and it's mostly news and sport, not secific teams, riders etc

I'm a Dumoulin fan as well , added to not liking Quintano , the Giro was just about spot on for me .

Yes, Sagan has been disqualified. Mixed feelings about that - yes, the tasche is an abomination but he is an absolute dude. I do like Cav though. I follow his wife on Instagram and my heart broke for her a bit on her insta stories today.

I like the ITV4 coverage, but I always have.

ITV4 Coverage and the Channel 4 coverage are provided by the same company, with most of the same personnel. Personally I love it.

I agree with Jens too. That sprint was all over the place, and tbh Cav has done much, much worse and not been disqualified.

"are/were" tenses all over the place there! Perhaps I'm blinded by disappointment that both Cav and Sagan are out.

" blinded by disappointment that both Cav and Sagan are out."

Yes.

I think Sagan should have realised that someone was on the wheel he wanted to nab, cyclists do have peripheral vision, and Sagan is famous for strategising & noticing all the details. He should have noticed. (maybe his dirty hair got in way of vision)

Really glad I'm not a commissaire today. Sad for both Sagan & Cav. I think Sagan's apparent elbow jab was simply trying to not fall off himself. Hope them 2 don't fall out over it.

Evening all. I'm no Cav fan but feel for him this evening. Not sure it wasn't simply an accident tbh.

Geraint is my favourite cyclist. I think he's got a big future. Heck, his present is pretty damn exciting.

Oh no. My team! I had Cav and Sagan!

Oh no Endo, that's a disaster! I hope you have some good climbers/GC contenders.

Reporting Cav has broken his shoulder, I am heartbroken for him however the crash happened.

Geraint my favourite too ShowOf, he is showing so much potential.

I'd like to give the benefit of the doubt to Sagan but in my fairly extensive experience of boys his body language was of a child who had lashed out and reacted in a millisecond then realised he was going to be in a lot of trouble and was trying to pretend he didn't know, didn't do it miss, sorry friend if you got hurt. My boys were in stitches tonight when I said 'it's got even worse for Sagan' and they wanted to know if he'd been fined as well as everything else and I told them 'no, Griepel has said he isn't friends with him anymore'. They don't really grow up these talented bike boys so they?

Thanks for the TdF thread. Hello all.

Feeling sad that it's official and Mark Cavendish is out too. Love him - and Sagan too. I know it's part of the sport but was hoping he'd get a few more stage wins this year.

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/40499580

From watching the highlights I believe the Cav/Sagan interface was largely caused by the race organisers decision to make the finishing chute narrower, and thus making the sprint more exciting. Well, that worked...

That little flick of the elbow was imo an instinctive reaction from a rider protecting his place. Sure, it's unfortunate that Cav is out, but I put that down to the organisers artificial narrowing of the finishing chute, not the rider's natural action to protect his racing position.

Just watched the head on, and Cav is leaning into Sagan. The DQ is, again imo, unwarranted. Just a racing incident.

I hope they change their mind... DQ from that stage would be fine, but the whole tour seems harsh. And it wasn't just caused by Sagan, he moved because Demare moved so where is Demare's punishment?

Seems really really harsh. I'd think you need to be absolutely sure before DQ and only taking that step on appeal from DDD suggests they weren't sure.

They was an appeal by dimension data? Blimey.

Was hoping there would be a thread! Feel awful for Cav. I don't particularly like Sagan, I think he's an obnoxious twerp. Not sure whether DQ was the right result, although I do think that Sagan was out of order. Cav was on Demare's wheel - there was room for Demare so there should have been room for Cav to follow, if Sagan hadn't cut right across him into the barrier. I don't think the commisaires would have DQ's the World Champion lightly though.

With my pedant's hat on: it wasn't the Comms who DQed Sagan, they just reported the incident. However, the fact that the Judges initially demoted him to last place with a 30 sec penalty, then changed their mind points to other pressures at work.
ASO are not well-known for their consistency, and resist all attempts to bring their races under the control of UCI who run all the others, I suspect they were behind the ban.

I think Cav was about one wheel off Demare's wheel. Sagan saw the gap but didn't see Cav right behind it until it was too late.

From this gif it looks like Sagan's elbow was pushed out by Cav's handlebars.

Again, you can see clearly here that Sagan's elbow was pulled out by Cav's handlebar.

Also, Sagan can't appeal. Bora lodged a complaint but decisions made by the commissaire's panel are final and not open to appeal

thank you v much msrisotto. Clarifies the elbow speculation and it does look like Cavendish was trying to open up a space that wasn't there and simply bumped off Sagan. He was down without any help from Sagan.

Anyone who's ridden on a track will get this: